Does the order you learn times tables in matter?

Most times table curricula introduce facts table by table — all the sixes, then all the sevens. Research suggests this creates avoidable interference between newly introduced facts. The order facts are introduced turns out to matter, though the practical question of optimal sequencing is still being researched.

What the research says

Dotan and Zviran-Ginat (2022) ran a carefully designed study with first-grade children learning 16 multiplication facts over 4 weeks. In two of those weeks, the four facts introduced were dissimilar to each other (low interference — e.g., 3×4, 6×8, 2×7, 5×9). In the other two weeks, the facts were similar to each other (high interference — e.g., 6×7, 6×8, 7×8, 7×9).

The results were striking. Facts learned in low-interference weeks were retained significantly better — and this difference persisted for seven weeks after training ended, demonstrating that the interference effect operates directly on long-term memory, not just on short-term recall.

The critical finding: the interference came from which facts were introduced in the same week, not from which facts the children had learned previously. Even facts that were already well-learned did not create the same interference as facts being introduced simultaneously. This means that the introduction sequence — not just the eventual practice mix — has a direct and lasting effect on memory.

Standard teaching methods (learn all the 6s, then all the 7s) introduce maximally similar facts at the same time — the high-interference condition the research associates with weaker retention.

Where the evidence is still open

One caveat worth stating: a 2025 study found no advantage for randomized training order over table-by-table training. The two findings are compatible — Dotan’s effect concerns which new facts are introduced together, not the order in which already-established facts are practiced — but the practical question of optimal sequencing is still being researched.

What this means in practice

When a child is being introduced to new facts — rather than practicing already-learned ones — the choice of which new facts to introduce together matters. Pairing 6×7 and 6×8 for introduction in the same week creates competition in memory that makes both harder to retain than if they had been introduced a week apart.

Try this

• When introducing new facts, avoid pairing facts that share an operand (e.g., don’t introduce 6×7 and 7×8 in the same week).
• Prioritize introducing facts that are numerically distant from each other in the same learning window.
• Once facts are established, mixed practice is fine — interference during introduction is the problem, not interference during later retrieval practice.

TabTabTab trains recall, not understanding. Building the concept of multiplication — arrays, repeated addition, commutativity — is classroom work, and it comes first.

Last reviewed: 2026-08-01